hand knit designs and hand dyed yarns for adults, children and the home

Working Through Loss

Ssssooooooo, yeah. It’s been a while. Long story short; not long after my last entry, my youngest sister, Chanel, passed away rather suddenly after fighting Leukemia for 15 years. I won’t go into how hard it has been, the trauma my entire family suffered, the personal battles I am fighting, or the incredible depth of loss we are facing without her. Everyone faces this shock and pain at one time or another, I know, but the reality for me has been a humbling experience that has made me dig deep to find a way to accept a new reality.

Once I was able to focus on ‘knitterly’ and ‘dyerly’ things, I found that my thoughts would drift back to my sister, but over time, morphed into inspiration of a sort. A kind of gentle sadness seems to literally color my work these days, with more greens and browns winding their way into my head. I decided that I would just go with it and let it be what it is, this process. As spring does it’s yearly dance, I would normally be thinking about pale pinks, greens, yellows and blues, but I find myself wanting to dig into my yak yarn colors, which are deeper, darker and richer (see the picture below).

I have found that I’m only working when the inspiration truly strikes, and not sticking to a strict schedule, as I did before. This really bothered me until a few weeks ago, when I forgave myself, and again, just let it happen. It’s been almost 8 months, and I am beginning to think that I just might climb out of this fog and be able to accomplish. . . something.

This week I have added minis to the shop, and some semi-solids, which you will see more of (I have found that not everyone loves variegated yarns, and want to include them too!) Here is a pile of a recent shop update:

In any case, watch this space, because that last thing Chanel would have wanted, is that I would freeze in my shoes, lay down, and stop my life. I have a bunch of ideas for future posts, new designs for my shop, and LOTS more yarns!